Qualifications

Starting on this homeschooling adventure I have read and heard many opinions on the homeschooling subject

I would like to throw in my two cents on some of the opinions I have heard about homeschooling. Some say parents without a teaching degree are not qualified to teach their children. This is something I thought about as our family was deciding whether to home school or not. I have only had two semesters in college. Big D will have his bachelors this November, but not in education. The question kept coming up. Are we qualified? Can I really teach my children what they need to know?

We taught our children how to speak. We taught them the alphabet, colors, shapes, and many other things they needed to know at that age level. But now we are talking about History, Math, Science, ect… Can I do this? Am I qualified?

My son will be in second grade and my daughter in fifth grade. I was also a child in these grades and I did pretty well in school at that time. I did all the work and I even received good grades. But does that qualify me to teach the subjects needed in those grades?

I really want to homeschool, but my first priority is my children’s education. So I went on with the doubt of my qualifications in the back of my mind. I picked out the curriculum and looked it over. The books tell you what to teach and how to teach it. But it gets better, if your child is not responding to the way the book suggest teaching the subject, you the parent can change the teaching method.

Now I was building confidence. I looked through the science book and thought hey I know this stuff! And the things I did not know I can read the textbook and learn it.

For subjects that I am not good at like Math for instance, my husband will step in. For Miss, her teacher at her old school tutors her in Math once a week and prepares her for the tests I give.

As I looked over my child’s curriculum and read the books, I remembered when we would sit on the couch when they were little and read books about colors and shapes. How we taught them their address and phone number and how to write their names. For a child who is 2,3,and 4 those are hard tasks. But all parents are qualified to teach these things to their children. Now that they are older the learning is the same only at a different level.

I do think all parents are qualified to teach their children. As long as the children’s education is top priority. I don’t think homeschooling is for everyone. But on this journey to the homeschooling lifestyle change, I do believe that Big D and I are quite qualified to teach our children. We have been doing it for years.

“Educating a child is a natural process. Home schooling is nothing more than an extension of parenting.” ~Sue Maakestad